Thank you. As least your pizza sample confirms the use of a perforated disk. The light crust color is somewhat a surprise, however. It could mean a lower protein flour, but it could be for other reasons, including the conveyor finger settings and oven throughput.

The light crust color is consistent with all the RT's I have had throughout California. Many of these places have different manufacturer's for their conveyor ovens, and I have seen variations on the oven temps, some as low as 375F.

The deep-dish gets run through the conveyor 1 1/2 times, and the color is still very light. Usual time through conveyer is about 15 minutes with a start that is close to the oven opening. Although an emplyee usually watches the pizzas and occasionally pulls a thin crust out early with the "bubble popper thingy".

The thin crust pizza's have also been very light (with the exception of a bubble that might have browned) with the crust edge color coming from sauce that has been spread to the edge that has cooked golden.

The tooth to the crusts reminds me of dough made with a flour blend with the typical flavor from an overnight rest in the fridge. I haven't tried to duplicate this crust in quite some time, years actually, but in the past the Pendelton Blend got close, but I don't think I ever got the hydration right (no scale at that time). I think I had the dough to dry.

Logged

The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.They say he acquired his size from eating too much pi.

In regard to the scrap dough, I don't discount that this is probably a practice so as to keep costs down. However, there will be days when you run out of scrap dough, or you get slammed during dinner time and you need to make more dough. Having the "scrap dough" as a necessary REQUIREMENT for the flavor of the crust is not a sound business practice. I just can't believe a commercial place would do that as part of their trade secret. It's inconsistent and means a fresh batch of dough will taste different without the scrap. This is something I have never experienced with RT. The dough is usually the same everytime I have been there, different times, different days.

The sheeting is very important to this dough, I think that's been established and documented quite well already. Also, the pizza is docked (thin crust) everytime I have had it.

Having the "scrap dough" as a necessary REQUIREMENT for the flavor of the crust is not a sound business practice.

DNA Dan,

What you say is correct. In fact, that is a point that Tom Lehmann makes from time to time with respect to using scrap dough. He says that customers come to expect the same thing in their pizzas time after time and that they will quickly notice inconsistencies in the crust. Many operators use leftover dough at the end of the day when the new dough batch is made, but even then it should not constitute a large percent of the total dough (it usually depends on the age of the scrap dough). If the practice is followed routinely, then the dough shouldn't change much day to day.

On the inside shots you can see where I tore the crust (left) vs. where the natural voids are (right). The crispy bottom is like a saltine cracker, but it's only about 2 mm thick. Above that the crust is layed and soft. It's like a biscuit in softness, but there is a smooth texture to it like you would find in a sourdough bread void. It's very difficult to describe.

I watched them cook this one. It went on the conveyor for 8 minutes total, only 5 of which it was under the heat. The conveyor oven has a front and an end that is open to the outside, with both ends having a staging area that isn't under the heat. It's radiant heat and not a convection type setup. Between this and the dough sheeting, I think that gives a good feel for the process of making the cracker bottom and layered top crust. The only thing missing now is the correct formulation to make a buiscuit type crust that is somewhat chewy, yet blisters upon heating with radiant heat.

I know you posted those for scientific reasons, but I do have to say that the first image is making me rather hungry they really load that thing up with cheese and pepporoni.

Btw, it's very interesting to see the inside of that dough, was it on the wettish side ? not wet, but very moist ? it looks that wayfrom the image. A lot of moisture is in the dough I would assume to keep it like that, eventhough the bottom is crispy / crackery.

Logged

Pizzamaker, Rib Smoker, HomeBrewer, there's not enough time for a real job.

Yes it was quite moist inside. The cracker bottom must just be a result of the radiant heat and have no bearing on the moisture content of the dough. I don't know if those conveyor ovens have different heat levels for the top vs. the bottom. They might cook the bottom hotter.

As for the cheese and pepperoni, yes you are right! As I devoured the other half, I was thinking, "gee maybe I am really looking for a cheese/topping formulation and not a crust formulation?" It's hard to take that away and just eat the pizza for the flavor of the crust.

I was reading in the Shakey's forum and Elsegundo refered to the DKM recipe as "a variation of pie dough if you reverse the shortening and the water" Or something to that effect. That got me thinking about the whole pie dough thing. It's close to that, but not as flakey, thicker and more gummy on top. In terms of wetness, you could scrape the top portion and form a ball out of it. It's very soft. Where this diverges from the DKM recipe is that the top soft layers are deeper. Every shot I have seen of the DKM recipe the entire crust is about 10 mm or less. the RT crust is about 20 mm or less.

Thank you very much for the photos. Along with the photos that Lydia provided, I now have a better feel for what the RT pizza and crust look like. After you posted the new set of photos, I spent some time rereading all the old posts on this topic and re-familiarizing myself with all the details that ThatOneGuy gave us for preparing the RT dough to make pizzas. I also did some more research on cracker-type pizzas, along with trying to come up with what may be a better approach to making the RT clone dough and pizza in the home.

As I now assess the matter, essentially everything seems to boil down to these four major components, which I will address in sequence:

Flour type: I agree that the King Arthur Sir Lancelot flour may not be the best choice. However, I think I would still go with either a bread flour or high-gluten flour from another source. Comparing the ingredients used in the KASL flour and the pizza flour blend that RT is using, the RT pizza flour blend appears to be higher in barley malt. That may account in part for the fairly light crusts that the RT standard pizzas have. I thought that RT might be using a Pendleton pizza flour blend, but when I read the ingredients given on a bag of the Pendleton (Mondako) pizza flour, I could see that it is a different blend with different rank ordering of ingredients (it also includes dairy whey instead of nonfat dry milk and it includes L-cysteine, which is often used to prevent over elasticity in the dough). Since General Mills flours uses barley malt in the same manner as the supplier of the RT pizza flour blend, I would consider a high-protein flour from GM, possibly even the All Trumps.

Dough formulation: In re-reviewing the RT clone dough formulation I originally posted, I do not believe that I would change much in that formulation. However, I would like to get a better fix, if that is possible, on the hydration. We have been going on the assumption that of the 24.5 pounds of pizza flour blend, 23 pounds of it is the flour. I’d like to see if I can confirm that, using my spreadsheet and running some numbers through it. It’s also possible that we may want to increase the amount of shortening, possibly along with a slight increase in the salt content. I believe the thickness factor, 0.08, is still a viable number to use for the time being. Since the sugar and non-fat dry milk are used in rather small quantities, I don’t believe that changing their quantities will have a material effect on the final dough. I would advocate using at least one day, and possibly two, of cold fermentation in order to get better flavor development. A long room-temperature ferment may also be an option although it may be necessary to alter (reduce) the amount of yeast to accommodate that option. Given a choice, I would perhaps go with the cold fermentation since that appears to be the method of choice at RT. What I will need to know at this point to produce the next iteration of the dough formulation is the number and size of the pizzas desired. From there, I should be able to come up with more detailed instructions for making the dough and managing it on the bench to make pizzas.

Dough preparation: Of all the four factors mentioned above, I think that this may be the most important. It’s the area where I have done the most rethinking, especially after studying the information that ThatOneGuy provided on how the dough is handled in conjunction with the sheeter. The work I did before in this area was predicated on making a round skin with the proper attributes. I think now that I may want to change that to a rectangular skin--one from which one or more round skins can be cut. Doing that may allow us to follow more carefully and precisely the procedures that ThatOneGuy detailed for us but on a much smaller scale and using a rolling pin in lieu of a sheeter. I think one of the key aspects of the RT dough handling process is the multiple rolling operations and the use of fair amounts of flour. My thinking here is that the multiple layers that are formed with the multiple sheetings with thin layers of flour and possibly air pockets trapped between the “sheets” may be the main contributor to the biscuit-like effect that has been mentioned. I think I would also slightly underknead the dough in the bowl because the multiple rollings themselves will provide additional kneading. Otherwise, the dough may be too tough and reduce the biscuit-like effect.

Oven thermodynamics: I believe the best way to go in baking the RT clone pizzas is to use a perforated disk, consistent with the approach used at RT. At the time I last wrote on this topic, all I had available to use was a dark anodized cutter pan. I now have a beautiful 16” perforated dark anodized disk from pizzatools.com. I think that such a disk should perform reasonably well in a home oven environment. In the absence of such a disk, I would be inclined to use a preheated pizza stone. For the disk, I would perhaps use an oven temperature of around 475 degrees F to start, and see what bake time is required to get the desired crust color, texture and crumb. It may take a few tries to get this part right, but usually the results are worth the effort.

Last night I saw a technique at a Take N bake that was "unusual" from others I have seen> The final baked product was very cracker-like but may have been a bit too thick to get the exact texture. (Pizza was baked only on parchment and achieved medium light bottom browning, but was indeed crisp in the same sense as RT.)

A dough ball (unweighed) was somewhat flattend with quite a bit of human effort, on what I would deem a "heavily floured surface". Then it was sheeted through an S type sheeter (equivalent of two passes). with a light dusting of flour only being added to the first exiting deck. The work surface was floured again, then the dough was laid out and cut around the pan of appropriate size (pan acted as the die). So far, all of this was pretty average dough handling.

BUT what shocked me, was that the scraps of dough were not left to set aside (as usual) but were incorporated (tucked into) into the next ball of dough. I was unable to determine the amount of scrap that was added, because an inexperienced worker had just left the dough station after getting 3 skins snagged in the sheeter. These skins were also added to the scraps.

Loads of flour was still on the scraps and the dough balls just barely held together as it was heavily pressed out by hand. It looked like a major disaster from my anal standpoint. But as it went through the sheeter, the mess compacted and adhered. Only vague hint of layers could be seen.

This was kinda a "Doh!" moment for me. It's just like creating layers for biscuits!

Something else I wanted to mention, was that just after using the dough docker, they dry brushed the skin to remove excess flour from the surface before it went to the prep table.

It has been on my mind for quite some time that excess flour on the surface of the dough before saucing may be a major contributor to that infernal gummy layer. Sauces on the style are either paste or concentrated crushed tomato base.

I have a question about their dough that may not be pertinent to RT.

Their dough was "STARK" white (Crisco white) and the feel reminded me of pizza dough made with a high ratio of cake flour. It was dense and squishy but didn't hold and indention. Any guesses on what kind of flour they may have been using?

Logged

The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.They say he acquired his size from eating too much pi.

The flour that is usually recommended for take-and-bake dough is a high-gluten flour. It is possible that the whiteness of the dough was due to using a bleached flour. Typically, take-and-bake skins are made with very little fermentation time (a short period on the bench, at room temperature) and using small amounts of yeast. A dough in that condition may not hold a finger indentation. Once the dough is sheeted and goes into the cooler, that is where the bulk of the fermentation takes place.

Thanks Peter for the well thought out response. I think your points are on track and well noted. I need to begin experimenting with different commercial flours. Do you know of any good sources online for General Mills Flour or other commercial varieties?

Your last post Lydia is staggering to me. I just had the same revelation last night too! After a long over-exhaustive internet search, I think what we're up against is a blend that contains a pastry flour. I think traditionally this is the most widely available commercial flour during the time when RT was formed (1959). Certainly the brand may have changed over time, but this might explain why it's like a pie crust, yet still has some chewiness to it.

In that thread they reference this other page http://www.slashfood.com/2006/06/14/cooking-live-with-slashfood-pizza-margherita/ which they are calling a pizza margherita I assume because of the slab mozzarella. However, this is a good example of using 30-40% cake type flour mixed with a higher gluten flour. If you look at the crust, it looks very soft inside yet it still formed a somewhat hard crust. Perhaps a merging of this recipe with less sugar (to decrease the browning) and adding of shortening to increase the surface crispiness will do the trick? In addition, rather than just tossing it out and getting the voids that they show in the photo, sheeting it out ala RT style seems like it would produce some soft biscuit layers. Your thoughts?

Many thanks for your efforts and contributions on this. Let's say we make our baseline for (1) 16" pizza. If you think that's too little, then let's say (2) 16" pizzas. I think the TF is 0.08 or something like that. Although I dont' know how you folks measure this.

The idea of combining pastry (or cake) flour with another flour, such as all-purpose or bread flour, is to lighten the other flour so that the combination emulates an Italian 00 flour. There are a ton of threads and posts on this forum that have discussed that topic although they have declined in frequency and popularity now that many more members have been able to get the genuine 00 flours. There is even a thread that is devoted almost entirely to the Cook’s Illustrated Margherita pizza, athttp://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3240.msg27390.html#msg27390. Having tried many pastry/cake/all-purpose/bread flour combinations, I don’t believe that is what RT is doing. Hence, I don’t think it is a particularly productive way to proceed if you are trying to reverse engineer the RT dough, even though you may like the final results.

Your best bet for getting flours may be from a distributor or foodservice company in your area that will sell on a cash and carry basis. There are some online sources of flours, but the ones I am aware of are in the eastern part of the country and in most cases their flour selections are limited. After shipping charges, even for small amounts, you are more likely to pay less in your area for a 50-lb. bag if you can locate a source that will sell to you directly. In the past, I have found that King Arthur has a professionals section, at http://www.kingarthurflour.com/professional/where.html, by which you can locate distributors of their products by state. Many of those distributors sell other products, including flour, from many other sources. I tried today to identify distributors in CA but the KA distributor function was not working. If you call KA, they should be able to identify distributors in your area. Other members reading this may also be able to give you some leads. I know that one member (I believe it was vitoduke) found a flour source in AZ that shipped into CA at reasonable cost.

In the meantime, I will come up with a dough formulation for both a single 16” and two 16” pies. I assume that you have a disk for that size.

Despite what I learned from this take N Bake, I still hesitate to assume that RT blend is contains cake flour. That is based on the tooth (pull and chew) to the crust. My impulse would be to blend a General Mills AP with a high gluten flour. But nothing softer than a Pastry Flour. But I'm still open to cake flour being a possibility.

Also have you rolled out a low hydration dough before, they can be a real ?itch.

Which RT did your pics from?

Something I'm a bit confused about, is the shortening. So far, omitting shortening in recipes (higher hydration) has produced crisper crusts. Maybe I just don't understand enough about the these lower hydration doughs yet. Maybe I should just start thinking of this style as more like a pastry dough (like Randy) instead of being similar to the other pizza doughs and throw most of what I know "out the door".

Peter

At this Take N Bake, the dough was being held at room temp. in a large bag and then was sheeted at the time of each order.

I still find their whole process bizar.

Logged

The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.They say he acquired his size from eating too much pi.

There are some cracker-crust doughs that use a lot of shortening. As an example, Tom Lehmann's cracker-crust dough formulation calls for 8% shortening plus an optional 4% butter (both by weight of flour). That is comparable to what some might use to make a Chicago deep-dish dough. I don't quite know why so much fat is used in the cracker-crust dough but it may be that the rest of the ingredients and the hydration have something to do with it. I haven't made enough cracker type crusts to learn what all the factors are and how they are interrelated.

By contrast, the RT dough uses a rather small amount of shortening, less than 2% by my estimation. At those levels, the shortening is likely to have rather minimal effects. It will help with the extensibility and perhaps allow the dough to go through the sheeter a bit easier but it is unlikely to be detected in the flavor of the finished crust or contribute all that much to creating the biscuit-like effect. That is why I think the multiple rollings of the dough with a lot of bench flour as I described previously may be more responsible for the final texture of the crust. When we have a chance to try out the RT method for working the dough on the bench we will hopefully find out whether my analysis is correct. As I understand it, I think what we are ultimately after is getting a product that falls between the thin cracker style and the American style.

As for the flour, I tried both bread flour and the KASL and thought the KASL produced a better product. But that was before I rethought the whole process. Either flour should fit within the confines of the RT dough making/handling processes. If another brand of high-gluten flour is not available, I would try using the bread flour, but preferably one that is more like the GM flour than the KA flours in terms of the use of the barley malt as previously discussed.

At this Take N Bake, the dough was being held at room temp. in a large bag and then was sheeted at the time of each order.

I still find their whole process bizar.

I bet this is because if the sheeted dough sits and rises, the layers will absorb more moisture and start to reform into a single layer crust. I have had difficulty producing layers with the DKM recipe on this site. It seems if I use too much flour, it's nearly impossible to roll it out (since I don't own a sheeter ) whereas if I use less flour, after rolling it out the dough just reforms with itself. It's a very tricky thing to replicate in a home kitchen, but so far I haven't been able to produce a layered product like others have with the DKM recipe.

I concur that the malt barley may be one of the keys here. I assume this is typical to GM flours? Every pizza I have made with KASL always ends up similar to a NY style irregardless of technique used to prepare the crust. KASL always gives me a very chewy product.

Thanks for the info on the Margherita threads. I have never made a pizza margherita, so I can't say how close or different from RT it is. I think I will err on the side of your expertise with that one. I am going to hunt down some GM flour this week. Which GM flour would you recommend I start with? All Trumps?

I just thought of something else tonight. How are pitas made? Is it just two layers with a lot of flour in between them? or are they cooked with intense heat causing the layers to separate. This process may be something that is also similar to what is going on with the RT crust.

I think I would go with the All Trumps if you can locate some. It's a very popular flour so it shouldn't go to waste if it doesn't quite do the job.

I believe the separation that occurs with pita bread is because of the gasses in the dough, the residual yeast, and the high oven temperatures, especially with nothing on the pita to prevent the dough layers from separating.